We are getting there!

I have been away and, of course, as soon as I leave, things start picking up speed. Lots of small but important jobs have been done, and Alfredo the plumber has been back again too, meaning that all the water systems are now working, although somewhere along the way, the septic pump appears to have been misplaced – it’s a mystery we hope to solve soon. Anyway, we are now more than half living in the new house. The light fittings are still not what they will be and we have to finish the Japanese room upstairs, and bookshelves downstairs, and we haven’t moved lounge furniture yet, but we are getting there…

The downstairs WC has tiles and fixtures…

…upstairs too.

Long mirror in the walk-in closet

Our dining table was moved over

The downstairs doors are finished…

…and the kitchen is actually in use

Finally, more roofing…

The roofers are sneaky. We don’t see them for almost two months, and then they turn up on a Saturday when are least expect them! Anyway, the roofers were here to do the eavestroughs (gutters) and downspouts for the rainwater collection system, and also to roof the porch. They got all the eavestroughs etc. done, but the porch roof wasn’t quite finished when, somewhat ironically, they had to stop work because of rain… but there’s only a very small bit to do now. And of course we still need to connect the downspouts to the cistern.

The roofers are here!

They work quickly

The south side porch roof and eavestroughs are all done

The west side remains unfinished

A diverter for when the cistern is full

So close to being finished

More bits and pieces

We had the pump and piping which will take water from the cistern to the house put in this week. As extra security in winter, the pipe has a heat line inside that will keep it from freezing. The one obvious mistake we’ve made so far with how the place looks is probably the very dark Ikea ‘Pax’ wardrobes we bought for the walk-in closet, and which I’ve been putting together this weekend. We didn’t really want this colour originally but we couldn’t get the colour of wardrobe frames that we wanted and we’re fed up of travelling all the way to Ottawa to get stuff. It’s not that important and we’ll get used to it. In good news, our Tatami mats and Shoji screen doors arrived this week from Lilin Tatami in Vancouver. They will have to wait though, as getting the kitchen and bathroom finished are priorities right now – and these are getting there – along with the eavestroughs (gutters) and porch roofing, which was supposed to be done this week, but didn’t happen…

New pump in place

Pipes from the cistern

Dark Ikea ‘Pax’ wardrobe frames in the walk-in closet

Shoji screen door

Half Tatami mat

White tiles in the bathroom

Bathroom windows

Through the higher window

Bath and window